One thing I love about creating monoprint collages is how open-ended the process can be. I print the polycarbonate matrix in particular colors and wait for inspiration to come. A large plate (24 x 36in) was covered in tiny tape (1/16 inch chart tape) and printed with bright citrine green and teal blues. All I could think of was rhythm and energy. After several weeks, Inception emerged. (Be sure to click on the image and scroll down for a close-up. This collage is large!)
My adventures with painter’s tape continued during my time in a monoprinting workshop at Penland School of Crafts. I should probably mention that monoprinting usually uses a plate with no matrix. No etched plate, no carved linoleum or wood block, no collagraph. Nothing repeatable.
I just had to have a matrix
Yet I felt compelled to try out my new tool by creating a matrix. My intention was to create the matrix, roll out the ink and then remove the tape. I eventually did this, thus destroying the matrix before I could take a picture of it. Here’s what a new matrix looks like, with both 1/4 inch tape and 1/8 in tape. You can see some ink residue on the tape even after it has been cleaned. Continue reading “Adventures in painters tape Part 1”
At the printmaking evening at WonderLab I was thrilled to unveil my bromeliad flower. I finally realized that rather than trying to put another strong color on the print, a transparent one would be best. A bit more carving and a transparent blue brought out the shadows of the very pink flower.
Elizabeth Busey, Bromeliad Flower. Reduction linocut on Masa paper, 3.5 x 3.5in, open edition. Printed by many at WonderLab Museum in Bloomington, IN.
One of the biggest challenges of reduction printmaking is registration. We were printing with spoons at the museum, so I created a mini-registration jig complete with pins and tabs. I cut the hole for the block in a piece of foam core — just large enough to hold the block snuggly. My printers did not need to take the block out at all, just use the brayer to ink the block. Then the tabs could be clicked into place and the spoon rubbing began.
It has been over a month since my last blog post. Since then, I have been consumed by a very large intricate square print…and hundreds of circles. So without further ado, here are the two resulting print series:
Elizabeth Busey. That Which Surrounds and Supports Us.
Linoleum Reduction Print, 28 x 28in, 2013.
